Almost two years ago, in July of 2017, I crafted a “Real World” curriculum. It must have rained or been outrageously hot for a few days in a row for me to have put this all down. It was sparked by ongoing conversations with students of two types (the conversations,
Continue readingAuthor: Marie Snyder
A Puff of Absurdity: McKibben is Banking on Protests
Bill McKibben in The Guardian: “Luckily, we have two relatively new inventions that could prove decisive to solving global warming before it destroys the planet. One is the solar panel, and the other is the nonviolent movement. . . . Before we can best employ these technologies, we need to
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Can We Change by 2030?
The timeline of 12 years has stuck to the point that we’re continuing to say it after the first year has passed. We have until 2030, which is 11 years from now. This BBC doc says we can do it! We’ve done amazing things, and we have to treat our
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Life After Warming
David Wallace-Wells’s book The Uninhabitable Earth starts out with a repetition of facts that won’t be news to anyone paying attention, but he has a lovely way with words. Four of the last five extinctions were from greenhouse gases, and now we’re adding carbon to the atmosphere 100 times faster than
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Like Rats Jumping a Sinking Ship
My class had a great conversation the other day about discrimination and W.E.B. DuBois’s “double consciousness.” I discussed the theory and solicited for comments, but there were none, as I expected. This kind of thing needs to sit a little and gel before we can really address it. So I
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Varoufakis’s Economic History for Dummies
First published six years ago, Varoufakis’s book, Talking to My Daughter about the Economy, addressed to his then 12-year-old daughter, is a quick read in economic theory that would benefit from some dates and locations in its lessons to cement examples in history. He was still discussing the text in
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Climate Change is About Capitalism
Phil McDuff in The Guardian: “Today’s children, as they become more politically aware, will be much more radical than their parents, simply because there will be no other choice for them. . . . Right now we can, with a massive investment of effort by 2030, just about keep the
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Another Piece of the Puzzle that is our Premier
Nora Loreto on Twitter yesterday: We already know that part of the increase in anxiety and depression is due to straight up loneliness. Kids are already too isolated from one another in real life. This will only add to that isolation as they struggle, on their own, through a course
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: More Ford Cuts: Ban Cell Phones, but Mandate Online Courses
From iPolitics: “On top of the change to class sizes, the government is also mandating that all high school students take four of their 30 credits online. This requirement will take effect in the 2020-21 school year. These e-learning classes will average 35 students per class, according to the government.”
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Ford’s Cuts to Education
As reported in a CBC article, Ford’s cuts to education, so far, aren’t nearly as bad as anticipated. Could it mean he actually listened to citizens? Or maybe they’ve been hinting at cuts so horrible that now we’re all just relieved and drained of the fight to stop the cuts
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Arctic Destruction
I just want to put this document here so I can find it again: Global Linkages: A graphic look at the changing Arctic. It was compiled by the UN Environment and GRID-Arendal. It looks at populations in the Arctic, and how it’s being impacted by climate change (permafrost thaw, ocean
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Seligman’s Hope Circuit
Martin Seligman is famous for a learned helplessness study I wrote about a few years back: In a famous experiment, dogs were put in a compartment and trained to jump a barrier when given an electric shock. After one or two tries, the dogs jumped the barrier immediately after being
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Are Grades Harmful to Students?
A bold claim was made to me recently that giving students grades on assignments and tests actually impedes their ability to self-assess their work. It’s a big deal when an educator insists that what you’ve done for years is actually harming the ability for your students to achieve to their potential.
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: A Different Sort of Electoral Reform
What if politicians were no longer allowed to campaign by burning fossil fuels travelling all over the world?? What if there were a very strict and low limit on campaign spending. There could be one election website, and each party would have access to one page on that site where
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: OFSTED Report
OFSTED recently published a report on what works in schools. Some of the ideas were relevant only to the U.K., but other ideas can be used here. They studied schools in a few different ways, looking at types of teaching that’s most effective and what else really matters in a
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Amber Alert Red Herring
People were upset to be woken up by the Amber Alert Thursday night. And now, on social media, people are REALLY upset that people were upset to be woken up by the Amber Alert. This is trending: But, instead, we need a #believethem movement to trend for whenever a parent
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On Fake News and Russian Collusion
In a recent interview in AcTIVism, Glenn Greenwald, one of few people Edward Snowden agreed to speak to, shamed other countries that benefited from Snowden’s revelations but refused to grant him safe passage. Because of Snowden, many are taking means to protect their personal privacy online, but his revelations had
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: The Cost of Inequality: Davis 2019
This is a great video of some excellent speakers to listen to while you make dinner or, maybe, do your taxes. In a nutshell, governments need to stop taking out social programs since they cost so little of the GDP anyway, and they need to make sure the wealthy pay
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: Kids These Days!
Here’s Greta Thunberg, 16, at Davos 2019, the World Economic Forum: At places like Davos, people like to tell success stories. But their financial success has come with an unthinkable price tag. And on climate change, we have to acknowledge we have failed. All political movements in their present form
Continue readingA Puff of Absurdity: On the Covington Catholic School Incident
The best part of this issue, if there can be a good part, where a bunch of high school boys surrounded Nathan Phillips to get a little kick from exercising their power over another human being, is that they’re being skewered on social media. Their action has precedence. It’s easy
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